Bronx Museum Teen Council
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
PainterKnown for:
domestic painting incorporating Nigerian visual culture
Education:
Swarthmore College; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Yale School of Art (MFA, 2011)
Njideka Akunyili Crosby moved from Nigeria to the United States as a teenager and developed a photorealist painting practice that addresses the cultural duality of her experience - scenes of domestic life constructed from collaged Nigerian magazine imagery overlaid with paint - in works of enormous technical complexity. Her The Beautyful Ones series draws its title from Ayi Kwei Armah's Ghanaian novel. A painting from 2012 sold for $3.1 million at Christie's in 2017, an auction record for a work by a living Nigerian artist.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby's Gear List(1)
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Connection Source
BrooklynrailInterview
Connection note
Applies acrylic with rollers in multiple thin layers on Rives BFK paper; incorporates acetone photo transfers, marble dust, glass beads, and fabric collage
Product description
Acrylic paint — pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion — dries quickly to a water-resistant finish and can be thinned with water or medium. Introduced commercially in the 1950s, it became the dominant alternative to oil paint for contemporary painters working in flat color, mixed media, and large-scale formats.
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Last updated March 20, 2026